


Opening

by pauraque



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Community: femslashex, Dom/sub Play, Empathy, F/F, Getting Together, Implied Past Trauma, Kink Negotiation, Light Bondage, Strap-Ons, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tasha can read Deanna's body as well as Deanna can read her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/gifts).



> Thanks to [Hannelore](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore) for looking this over. <3

For the first four days they serve together, Tasha successfully avoids exchanging much more than two words with Deanna Troi.

Deanna, of course, notices.

"Hello, Lieutenant," she says with a small, crimson smile. "May I join you?"

Tasha carefully studies the shelves that line the wall behind the bar, hoping, though not really believing, that Troi might not be able to read her if she doesn't make eye contact. "Knock yourself out," she says.

She slides into the seat next to Tasha, knees together, hands in her lap. Out of the corner of her eye, Tasha sees that her pale knees are bare below the hem of her uniform. "I just wanted to touch base with you, since we… haven't had a chance to talk very much, yet."

Tasha takes a slug of her drink. "No offense, but an empath is pretty much the last person I'd ever want to talk to."

"Because you don't want people to know what you're feeling," Troi concludes.

Tasha lets out a short scoff of a laugh. "Hell, half the time _I_ don't want to know what I'm feeling." She means it to come out cool and careless, but when she hears herself say it she realizes just how true it is, and feels a pang of exposure, embarrassment. She intensifies her study of the wall.

Troi gazes down at her hands, pauses a moment. "Everyone has parts of themselves they don't want to share. It's hard to describe, but to me, those parts feel like they're inside… boxes, of a sort. Locked up tightly. I can't change the abilities that I have, but I assure you, I don't just open those boxes without consent."

There is something about the way she says that word: _consent_. The crisp articulation as it comes off her tongue, a tone almost of veneration. 

Tasha allows herself to turn and look, and she meets Deanna's shadow-dark eyes for the first time.

*

Tasha spends a lot of time looking down at Deanna. The soft, pale nape of her neck beneath dark hair gathered up in bejeweled strands. The way her body moves when she leans in to talk to the captain — the curve of her waist, that earnest clasp of her hands.

Everything about her is disarming. Soft, but not weak. Sometimes when she offers Tasha a sweet smile as she passes by her duty station, Tasha gets a crazy urge to kiss that smile bruisingly hard, to push her up against the bulkhead and take her right there, with the whole bridge crew watching.

Drawing a tight breath and blowing it out slowly, Tasha forces herself to focus on the smooth heat of the console beneath her fingertips. She tries to hold down the volume of her feelings, afraid they're rolling down the bridge like empathetic bellows. She thinks about the locked boxes in her mind. If Deanna can feel what Tasha is feeling, she's too damn nice to say anything.

And somehow, that makes Tasha feel it even more.

*

Deanna gets on the turbolift at Deck 7, and when she sees Tasha there, she gives her one of those secret little smiles. Shakes her hair back and stands at ease beside her.

"Deck 35."

Tasha has twenty-eight decks alone with her.

Gazing up at the softly pulsing lights, Tasha decides to think about last night. Not a fleeting thought, stuffed away as soon as it's noticed, but deliberately. Carefully. She was alone in her quarters, thinking about Deanna. Imagining getting close to her, getting the scent of her.

She feels the vibrating thrum of the ship under her feet and all around them as they soar up and up, past Deck 15, Deck 16, and Tasha doesn't know what it should feel like to broadcast a thought, but she is trying anyway. She pictures the box that holds her desire for Deanna unlocking, cracking open — not demanding, but offering, showing. Asking.

She lets herself feel the remembered echo of pleasure, what the slick fabric of her pillow felt like as she held it between her thighs, writhing against it and thinking of her. Wanting to be with her, tangled up in her. To learn what would please her.

The turbolift halts at Deck 35, and with the sudden stop Deanna gasps, hand to her chest. The doors hiss open onto a vacant corridor. They turn to each other and Deanna's eyes are shining, her cheeks flushed pink.

To Tasha's infinite relief, she is smiling.

*

When Tasha invites Deanna to her quarters for dinner, she thinks that's taking it slow. What could be more chaste than a dinner date? Of course, she's never seen Deanna eat before.

The spoon slides out slow and clean from between Deanna's lips, and her eyes fall closed in ecstasy, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. The sound she makes is almost a groan.

"Mmm, it's just—" Deanna swallows and starts again, waving her free hand vaguely as though the pleasure is impossible to describe. "The texture is so wonderfully smooth, and the herbs blend together so perfectly. I love the tanginess of the… what is it, fermented dairy?"

"Sour cream," Tasha offers, unable to wipe the grin from her face.

"Mmh," Deanna hums again, letting her breath out through her nose, collapsing a little in her chair. "Well, I just love it."

"I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who appreciated food the way you do," Tasha says, finding a laugh rising in her chest.

"I've always considered it one of the greatest pleasures in life," Deanna confides with a smile, her spoon making a little swirl in the center of her potatoes.

"I guess it's easier to see it that way when you've never wondered where your next meal is coming from."

It slips out without Tasha wanting it to, clangingly bitter. She hastily tries to stuff away the undirected anger that sparks at the back of her mind, turning her gaze aside.

Deanna does not look offended, nor uncomfortable. She does not offer a platitude to make it all better. She only nods, her smile turning gentle and a little sad, and takes another bite.

*

They are facing each other in Deanna's bed, the lights low, their knees touching.

"So, what kind of things do you like to do?" Tasha asks.

"You mean sexually?"

Deanna's hands are pressed together beneath her head, almost girlish. Tasha savors the inner burn of wanting her, content for now to wait, to talk, to ask. She nods.

"I've noticed humans rarely ask that question, or at least not in so many words."

"I like to be direct. I hope that's not a problem."

"Not at all. I find it refreshing." Deanna leans in and presses her smile against Tasha's, and the slow smolder of Tasha's desire crackles into flames; she presses her thighs together, hips tightly forward with the ache of it, eyes falling closed.

The small sound of their lips parting is tantalizing in the quiet room. Deanna's gaze turns up to the ceiling, considering.

"Well…"

Her voice is soft and measured as she gives the answer Tasha wouldn't have dared to hope for:

"When it comes to sex, I've always had a fascination," she says, "with surrender."

*

Tasha understands what Deanna wants. When they talk about surrender and exactly what that means to Deanna, they're speaking the same language — one Tasha hasn't had the chance to speak in years, but it comes back to her like piloting a shuttlecraft.

Deanna is nude, kneeling on the floor in front of Tasha's bed, leaning back so that her head and shoulder blades are flat on the mattress. A soft click as Tasha secures the cuffs around her wrists, and a beep and a pneumatic breath as Tasha's touches register on the controls and the slack goes out of the strap that's attached to the head of the bed. The line goes taut, and so does Deanna's body, becoming a breathtaking arch as she curves to accommodate the stretch, to keep her knees firmly on the floor.

Tasha lies beside her, body curled and head propped up on one hand. She strokes Deanna's hair, removing a stray curl from her forehead and smoothing it back. Deanna gazes up at her in sweet anticipation, lips softly parted.

"Eyes closed," Tasha whispers. Deanna obeys.

Tasha can see how relaxed she is when she's bound, her hands loose and easy in the cuffs despite the tension of the position she's holding. Her eyes are shut gently, not tightly, her face at peace.

When Tasha touches Deanna's delicate inner arm, below her elbow, she is half-surprised that Deanna startles, gasps. She'd wondered just how closely Deanna could read her intentions — whether it would even be possible to make her jump.

"Be still," Tasha cautions her warmly. She lets the order sink in, then drags her fingers lightly, slowly down, through the dark and slightly sweat-damp hair beneath her upstretched arm, and traces around the curve of her breast.

Deanna is already shivering with the effort of obedience. She bites her lip, straining not to move as Tasha draws lazy spirals on the stretched and sensitive skin of her stomach, finding all the ticklish places. A quick tweak of Deanna's tightened nipple, and Deanna draws a sharp breath in through her teeth, hands clenching. She is trying so hard for Tasha, wanting to be good for her. Her good girl.

As Tasha feels that way, sees her that way, Deanna's body shudders deeply, and she lets out a small cry of need.

It bends Tasha's mind for a second, imagining what it would be like to feel your own partner's dominance even while you were submitting. Feeling both, knowing both. She feels a surge of some strange, fierce affection for the universe, that it has wonders in it like this.

Grinning, Tasha slides down to the floor. She slides her fingertips up the fronts of Deanna's taut and stretched thighs, feeling the tension in them vibrating like bowstrings. The sound Deanna makes is nearly a whimper as Tasha buries her face in the dark fur above Deanna's sex, breathing in the gorgeous scent of her. _Mine_ , she is thinking, and not just the words, but also feeling _mine_. Going to take care of you. Pride bursting in her chest, power and tenderness. She takes her first taste of Deanna, because she can.

"Please," Deanna says. And her whole body, too, says _please_ , spells out the need to be pushed and then comforted, as clear as if it were written in black and white. Deanna's gotten here so easily — the muscles of submission are ones she keeps in good shape, ready to go to that place whenever she finds someone she wants to go with.

"Please what? Do you want me to get you off?" Tasha asks, teasingly offhand, both reveling in playing this role and aware that what they have together is still new; it makes sense to tread a little lightly, to ask and be reassured even while they're playing.

" _Please_ ," comes Deanna's drawn-out answer, half breathless and all need, and Tasha can hear how much she loves that word, that it hits something deep inside her to beg.

"Get up," Tasha says, patting Deanna's leg. "Move, get up there."

Wrists still bound, Deanna twists around to get herself up onto the bed, dragging herself by the strap that binds her to the bedframe. She's looking up at Tasha, dark eyes shining with wild excitement, and full of trust and joy.

It's with an edge of swagger that Tasha moves into position between Deanna's legs, and she holds Deanna's gaze as she goes down — so delicious to inhabit this version of herself again, sly and cool and _powerful_.

Deanna is already so excited that it doesn't take long before she's coming, feet planted hard on Tasha's back and tangling her hands in the now-slackened strap above, _thank you, thank you, thank you_.

Afterwards, Tasha slides up and releases the cuffs, and Deanna slips into her arms like they've been doing this for twenty years. Tasha rubs her back as she comes down, still with the taste of Deanna on her tongue.

"That was wonderful," Deanna purrs at last, lying back and stretching. She lifts up her legs, pulling back on them to get any lingering tension out. "It seems to come quite naturally to you."

Tasha is grinning. "I was about to say the same."

Deanna nestles back into her chest, pulling a sheet over them. "I hope we can do it again."

"Me too," Tasha says, feeling a strange sort of tightness in her stomach that isn't any emotion she recognizes.

"You're obviously experienced; I'm sure there are other things you'd like to do," Deanna suggests lightly, pressing her cheek against her.

In a casual deadpan, Tasha says, "I can probably think of a few."

*

Deanna understands when Tasha explains about not wanting to be touched in certain ways, at certain times. She understands when Tasha talks about what it means to her to _give_.

Tasha hasn't worn a strap-on in a long time, but when she puts one on for Deanna, she slides right back into the rightness of it. It's like the fabric tight around her hips is holding her together, the forward-pressing weight of it somehow making her more balanced. When Deanna first sees her with it, her look of open and eager delight is infectious, and Tasha finds herself grinning like an idiot, almost laughing in happiness.

Deanna is on her back on the bed, a pillow beneath her hips lifting her up, presenting herself for Tasha. They kiss, Tasha lying between Deanna's legs, the toy trapped between them and pressing against them both. They rock back and forth that way, Tasha kissing and touching her until she's flushed and gasping.

When Tasha enters her, Deanna's head tilts back, her legs wrap around Tasha's body, pulling her in. To see Deanna that way, lost in pleasure — it's what Tasha needs. It's more than the tight pressure of the strap-on against her as she slides into Deanna's body, and more than the delicious tingle when she pulls her hips back and the pressure is released. It's knowing that _she_ is making Deanna feel this way.

She can read Deanna's body so well, as well as Deanna can read her heart. The gathering tension in her arms and legs, the shudders beneath Tasha's hands. Bracing herself up on one hand, Tasha reaches between them to touch Deanna's clitoris, knowing she wants that now, and at the same time Deanna reaches too. Their fingers collide, intentions collide, breathless laughter mingling.

Deanna places Tasha's hand where she wants it and her own hand on top, pressing firmly and making sounds of joy. Their hands move together, and their bodies move together, and Deanna speaks in gasps of astonishment, as though seeing the most beautiful vista for the first time.

"You love this," she says, her voice thick with ecstasy. "You love… to give, to give me pleasure. It's so much more than most people, it's everything to you—"

Deanna breaks off with a moan, eyes falling shut, as though the reflection of Tasha's heart is almost too much pleasure to bear. When Deanna comes, Tasha drinks it all in, the intimacy of her flushed and sweating face, her quaking body, the rawness of the sounds she makes, and Tasha's body is not orgasming, but she is _coming_ with Deanna in her heart and her mind and the wholeness of herself, and it is everything, everything she needs.

*

Deanna is asleep in Tasha's bed, curled up with her forehead pressed against Tasha's chest. Deanna falls asleep easily; Tasha envies that, though she doesn't begrudge it.

Tasha has been thinking, lately, about what it would mean to open some of the boxes that are locked inside her mind. She has gotten used to them being there, living around them. Some of them… she just doesn't see how. Even beginning to let them open is a staggering humiliation that is nearly physical, like a blade in her gut.

But now there is Deanna. Deanna doesn't push her where she doesn't want to be pushed. She doesn't think she knows Tasha's mind better than she does. Tasha looks out the window at the passing stars, floating free through infinite space.

They're going to have to get up soon. Tasha has duty in half an hour. But with Deanna loose and lovely in her arms, it's all too easy to convince herself that they still have time.


End file.
